Blogposts will include items which indicate why there is no room on our precious, fragile world for "Empire Thinking" from any nation or peoples anymore. Among these items:
Human Rights especially related to nationalism and war;
Peace, justice, inspiration which goes beyond borders;
Literature, theology, philosophy of any age or from any place which clearly shows how interconnected and One we humans are at base.

Thursday, March 25, 2010

"In his Nobel acceptance speech, President Obama argued that nations will at times 'find the use of force not only necessary but morally justified,' We are asking: 'What happens when service members are asked to fight in a war they believe is not morally justified?' (Rev. Dr. Rita Nakashima Brock, project director of the Truth Commission exerpted from article below)

ORIGINAL source of this breaking article is found in TruthOut dot org...click here

by: Dahr Jamail, t r u t h o u t | Report

Sgt. Travis Bishop. (Photo: via Travis Bishop)

Last August, Travis Bishop refused to serve in Afghanistan. Having filed for Conscientious Objector (CO) status, Bishop, based at Fort Hood, Texas, in the US Army's 57th Expeditionary Signal Battalion, was court-martialed and sentenced to 12 months in a military brig. He was released from the brig today.

Bishop served his time in Northwest Joint Regional Correctional Facility at Fort Lewis, Washington. This military brig is notorious for being a particularly difficult jail to serve time.

While in the brig, Bishop was recognized by Amnesty International and received support from hundreds of people from around the world who wrote letters of encouragement to him and wrote letters to Lt. Gen. Robert Cone, the commanding general of Fort Hood, asking for Travis to be released from prison.

During his court-martial at Fort Hood last August, Bishop was tried by the military for his stand against an occupation he believes is "illegal." He insisted that it would be unethical for him to deploy to support an occupation he opposed on both moral and legal grounds, thus his decision to file for CO status. A CO is someone who refuses to participate in combat based on religious or ethical grounds, and can be given an honorable discharge by the military.

In February, Bishop was granted a three-month reduction in his sentence by General Cone as a result of a successful clemency application.

In a letter to Truthout from prison, Bishop wrote this of his being granted clemency:

"Three months clemency. Wow. I am truly astonished. Great for me? Sure. Great for future resisters? Even more so. I cannot believe that I told the Army "No," refused to deploy, pleaded not guilty, and then indicted the entire system and blamed my command in court, and still merited clemency."

Bishop's case brings to light an important question for those serving in the US military today - that of the soldiers' ability, while serving, to follow their conscience during a time of war.

This topic was the focus of a recent conference, Truth Commission on Conscience in War, that took place March 21-22 at the Riverside Church in New York City.

The conference brought together veterans and national religious, academic and advocacy leaders to honor and protect freedom of conscience in the military. It featured testimony from recent veterans and national experts on the moral, psychological and legal dimensions of conscience and war.

According to a press release about the event, "The March 21 public hearing will launch the Commission's eight-month campaign to bring national attention to decisions of moral and religious conscience facing American service members, culminating with the Veterans Day release of the Commission's Final Report."

During his court-martial, Bishop told Truthout he was "opposed to all war," based on his religious beliefs, that "as a real Christian, I must be opposed to all violence, no matter what, because that is what Jesus taught."

The Truth Commission chair, Rev. Dr. Kaia Stern, who is also the director of the Pathways Home Project at the Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice at Harvard Law School, announced before the commission:

"The United States of America is founded on principals of political and religious freedom. When we punish the soldier who heeds his or her moral compass, our democracy is in grave danger."

During the commission, Truthout spoke with Ian Slattery, who is a member of the planning committee for the commission, and is an associate producer of the nationally broadcast film "Soldiers of Conscience."

"From our point of view, Travis's story is indicative of something that is a broader issue, and that is that every service member has a conscience," Slattery explained to Truthout, "The meeting we had this week in New York, and in the private meetings to follow, we looked at stories across the board that service members are experiencing. His story is like some of the other CO's we've seen, who've had their claims denied or approved. These are folks who have chosen the harder road - to follow the call to conscience they've heard within themselves."

According to Slattery, Bishop's story is "a good example of service members' consciences not being honored."

One of the main points James Branum, Bishop's civilian lawyer, made in defense of Bishop during his court-martial was that Bishop had never been given proper training that would have informed him of the CO option.

"Travis was never told about his option of conscientious objector status," Branum, told Truthout last August.

Branum explained to Truthout. "If an enlisted soldier isn't informed that he has a right, then he effectively does not have that right. Just one to two days before he was set to deploy, in the midst of moral questions, he heard about CO status.

During his trial, Bishop's defense called two witnesses to the stand, Pfc. Anthony Sadoski and Specialist Michael Kern, both of whom were active-duty soldiers at Fort Hood who said that they, too, had never been informed that filing for CO status was an option.

The judge in Bishop's court-martial, Maj. Matthew McDonald, said that whether Bishop was notified or not about his right to file for CO status was not relevant to the case.

"If every soldier in the Army who disobeyed an order could claim it was because they weren't notified of conscientious objector status, we probably wouldn't have a military any more," he added.

Branum told Truthout at the time that he felt Major McDonald was attempting to establish a precedent with the trial, regardless of the outcome. "We want to change the law, and I would argue that when soldiers are informed of their deployment, which is generally two to six months in advance, they should be giving training about CO status. I will argue that if you don't do the training, you can't deploy."

Questions like this and others are what Slattery and others at the Truth Commission hope to bring to the national stage.

"With two conflicts in the last nine years, hundreds of thousands of service members have come home, and we've yet to bring matters of conscience to the table to talk about," Slattery explained, "The commissioners that met on Monday at the church will be working together in the coming months to release a report on Veterans Day, that may include recommendations on policy and policy changes that will better protect the consciences of people like Travis and those to come in the future."

In Bishop's case, he had filed for CO status after his realization that he was morally opposed to all war. However, one of the issues of the Truth Commission was that of selective CO's. "One of the ironies of the all-volunteer Army is that the only way we'll recognize their conscience is if they are a CO ... but Travis's story teaches us that justice is a part of war, and when they attempt to exercise that conscience, they are only recognized if they are opposed to all war," Slattery added. "We hope this will open up this possibility for people who come in the future like Travis. We want to bring all this into a discussion, and do so without being accused of being unpatriotic, but we owe it to service members to respect their conscience and their choices."

The film Slattery helped produce, "Soldiers of Conscience," was broadcast nationally on PBS in October 2008.

In the film, Camilo Mejia, a US Army veteran of Iraq who was the first service member to publicly refuse to return to Iraq, states what may well be the core spirit of the Truth Commission and CO's like Bishop: "There's no higher assertion of freedom than to follow your conscience."

"The film has been critical to doing what we did at the Truth Commission," Slattery told Truthout, "which is to bring together people to look at an issue considered as taboo, from different perspectives. But the film has facilitated this and been an important resource for folks to do this, those who are not antiwar with those who are, along with religious groups and other professionals."

Rev. Dr. Rita Nakashima Brock, project director of the Truth Commission, said of the Truth Commission:

"In his Nobel acceptance speech, President Obama argued that nations will at times 'find the use of force not only necessary but morally justified,' We are asking: 'What happens when service members are asked to fight in a war they believe is not morally justified?"

In January, VA Secretary Eric Shinseki confirmed that young male veterans are committing suicide at an increasing rate - losses that go uncounted as casualties of the current US wars. At the same time, new VA research on "moral injury" highlights the lasting moral and psychological harm of violating one's sense of right and wrong in war.

It is this point the Truth Commission highlighted, along with the need to respect not just CO's, but "selective conscientious objection."

Rev. Herman Keizer Jr., the commission's honorary host, is a retired Army chaplain, Vietnam veteran and former chair of the National Conference on Ministry to the Armed Forces. Keizer is also an outspoken leader in a growing movement for "selective conscientious objection," the right to object morally to a particular war.

Current military regulations only recognize objections to "war in any form." In a recent letter to President Obama, Keizer argued: "The conscience of the selective objector deserves the same respect as the conscience of the pacifist."

Meanwhile, Branum plans to force the issue with the military to at least have CO training better represented within the military.

Branum told Truthout that he plans to take the result of Bishop's trial to the Military Court, the US Army Court of Criminal Appeals, the US Military Court of Criminal Appeals and "then Habeus Review and take it to a civilian court, then, if necessary, the Supreme Court."

Branum added, "If Travis goes to jail, he wants it to be for something. He wants it to count." The attorney said he will continue to demand the Army provide CO training, "and my hope is that when troops are going to be deployed, they'll be read their Bishop rights."

In another letter from prison, Bishop wrote to Truthout about how he felt his story should inspire future war resisters.

"I can't wait to get out of here, if only to tell people, "Hey! Look at me! If I can do it, surely more people can too!!"

Now that he is free, Bishop plans to continue to speak out about conscientious objection and work as an advocate for other conscientious objectors.

Wednesday, March 24, 2010

(among other reminders, Dr. Palermo's piece reminds me how important it often is to listen to our historians!)

Thirty years ago, Archbishop Oscar Romero of El Salvador was assassinated in the early evening at the tiny church, Divina Providencia. The day before he was killed, at the Cathedral of San Salvador, he had ended a sermon with words he directed at Salvadoran soldiers and police:

"I would like to make an appeal in a special way to the men of the army, to the police, to those in the barracks. Brothers, you are part of our own people. You kill your own campesino brothers and sisters. And before an order to kill that a man may give, the law of God must prevail that says: Thou shalt not kill! No soldier is obliged to obey an order against the law of God. No one has to fulfill an immoral law. It is time to recover your consciences and to obey your consciences rather than the orders of sin. The church, defender of the rights of God, of the law of God, of human dignity, the dignity of the person, cannot remain silent before such abomination. We want the government to take seriously that reforms are worth nothing when they come about stained with so much blood. In the name of God, and in the name of this suffering people whose laments rise to heaven each day more tumultuously, I beg you, I ask you, I order you in the name of God: Stop the repression!"A single shot rang out and pierced Romero's heart. As he bled to death those around him believed they knew what forces in Salvadoran society were responsible for the crime. Church and human rights groups recognized the killing as the familiar work of right-wing death squads. The Washington Post and other U.S. news outlets reported that Romero's assassination might have been the work of "leftist" rebels.

Archbishop Romero had sent several letters to President Jimmy Carter pleading with him to stop all U.S. aid to what he considered a murderous regime. The day after Romero's funeral, which itself was marred by violence when armed men in plainclothes fired into a crowd of mourners, Carter approved an increase in "non-lethal" U.S. aid to the Salvadoran government, which included cargo trucks, radar, riot control gear, and night-vision tracking equipment. Three days before he left office, Carter lifted the ban on U.S. arms sales to El Salvador.

When President Ronald Reagan came to power he poured even larger amounts of arms and money into the Salvadoran civil war making El Salvador the single largest recipient of U.S. aid in Latin America. Military assistance went from $5.9 million in fiscal year 1980 to $35.5 million in 1981, and then to $82 million the following year. During this same period, economic aid to El Salvador went from $58.3 million in 1980 to $114 million in 1981, and then to $182.2 million in 1982. [Americas Watch]

In the U.S. Senate, North Carolina Senator Jesse Helms, who was then the Chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, heaped high praise on Salvadoran Major Roberto D'Aubuisson and his men for being staunch allies in the fight against communism. Senator Helms's blandishments came despite evidence that suggested elements of D'Aubuisson's paramilitary organization were possibly responsible for murdering Romero. The career diplomat, Robert White, who was Carter's ambassador to El Salvador called D'Aubuisson and his armed supporters "pathological killers."

The killing in El Salvador escalated after Romero's death. In late 1981, when reports surfaced that the U.S.-backed "Atlacatl Battalion" of the Salvadoran Army massacred peasants near the village of El Mozote, both the Salvadoran government and the Reagan Administration denied it happened. The El Mozote massacre had left 767 men, women, and children dead.

Americas Watch, the nonprofit human rights organization that monitors Latin America, estimated that in El Salvador right-wing death squads tied to the government's security services were responsible for killing 30,000 people. And in 1991, a "truth commission" sponsored by the United Nations made clear that the Salvadoran military and the death squads were "one and the same."

In the United States, the Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador (CISPES) emerged in 1981 as an umbrella organization of peace activists, clergy, and other groups that worked with refugees who were fleeing the bloodshed and seeking asylum. Each year CISPES activists held candlelight vigils on the anniversary of Archbishop Romero's slaying. The first one took place on March 24, 1981.

And what did those who formulate United States foreign policy learn from the carnage in El Salvador? The same thing they should have learned from Vietnam: Whenever the United States sticks its nose into another country's civil war it only raises the level of death and destruction making the politics all the more intractable. And in the end it achieves very little other than what could have been worked out peacefully in the first place.

We recently heard that the "conservative" members of the Texas State Board of Education voted to erase Archbishop Oscar Romero from children's history textbooks, which is an ironic decision since their hero, Ronald Reagan, believed that Central America was the "front line" against the spread of Soviet communism in the Western Hemisphere.

Today, American drone aircraft are engaging in "targeted assassinations" in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen, and elsewhere. More often than not these strikes result in the killing and maiming of innocent people, including women and children. On the one hand, Pentagon officials tell us the war in Afghanistan is about 85 percent political and only 15 percent military and that the only path to success is to win the hearts and minds of the people, to build schools and clinics, provide jobs and build infrastructure, and help improve the lives of regular people. While on the other hand, these same Pentagon officials tell us that the means to accomplish this noble and just end must include blowing away women and children with an endless barrage of drone attacks. They seem incapable of seeing, like in El Salvador in the 1980s, that escalating the violence in Afghanistan and Pakistan will do little to address the underlying social and political problems that produced the conflict in the first place.

Archbishop Oscar Romero gave his life trying to prevent a bloodbath in the country he loved. He tried to shield his people from the U.S.-backed repression, consistent with his mission as the top Catholic cleric in the country. Romero's liberation theology didn't arise from abstract ideological or canonical principles but was grounded in his seeing all around him the crushing poverty, hungry children, and innocent victims of class violence in El Salvador. Despite the actions of the mighty Texas Board of Education to erase his memory, Archbishop Romero will be long remembered as a friend of the oppressed, a champion of the poor, an advocate of peace, and a tribune for justice.

Find this today, March 24, 2010 at Huff Post

==========================

A little more on Archbishop Oscar Romero:

As the Archbishop of San Salvador during El Salvador's brutal civil war, Romero became the "bishop of the poor" for his work defending the Salvadoran people. After calling for international intervention to protect those being killed by government forces, Romero was assassinated on March 24, 1980.

Do you hear the cry of the poor? "The greatest works of liberation theology are not written, they're lived in people such as Archbishop Oscar Romero of El Salvador," says Michael Lee, a theology professor at Fordham University.

Find more on Romero's wisdom, an article by Father John Dear who's famous for his peace work - and a few Prayers based on quotations from Romero at:

oneheartforpeace dot blogspot dot com ( Or just remember oneheartforpeace - it comes up quickly either way )

Also, be sure to look at SOAW dot org for MUCH more on items related to Romero's work

Sunday, March 21, 2010

The "WEAVING a Net of Accountability" conference on North Carolina ’s role in US torture and extraordinary rendition is less than three weeks away! For much more information, Plz GO to accountabilityfortorturenc dot org

In a few minutes you will find out a lot quickly here on this SHORT COMPACT VIDEO: The 6-minute conference video is a great way to learn some basics and to get the word out! here

This conference has made the news in Ireland, where our invited speaker from ShannonWatch, Dr. Edward Horgan, still waits to learn if he will get a new visa in time to fly to North Carolina

INTERFAITH SERVICE: Please encourage people to attend the Interfaith Service on Torture that precedes Scott Horton’s talk on April 8. We will soon have a flier for the service. It is being organized by Rabbi Raachel Jurovics of Cary and Imam Abdullah Antepli of Duke University, and will be an inspiring event. The service is 5:30 to 6:15 pm at Goodson Chapel, Duke Divinity School. Directions to Duke Divinity School : here . Map and parking: here

The SCOTT HORTON TALK STARTS at 7:30 pm on April 8 in Love Auditorium, which is in the Levine Science Research Center at Duke University . It’s walking distance from the Interfaith Service, and there will be simple food for purchase in-between. Map: here

RSVP: Are you planning to attend the conference on April 9, from 9 am to 5 pm, at the John Hope Franklin Center ? It’s free, but we need a count for breakfast and lunch. Please RSVP to contact@ncstoptorturenow.net .

Again, if this topic interests you, in a few minutes you will find out a lot quickly here on this VIDEO: The 6-minute conference video is a great way to learn some basics and to get the word out! here

Christopher Dickey currently serves as Newsweek’s Paris bureau chief and Middle East regional editor. In a recent Newsweek online column, Dickey recalled a story from 1996.

“Back when Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu was elected Israel’s prime minister for the first time, in 1996, a Jordanian political scientist with a grim sense of humor said the only way to describe him was like a villain out of an old Western: “He’s a lyin’, cheatin’, deceitin’ son of a bitch!”"

This is not meant to malign Bibi, alone. Any observer of the political class knows Dickey could find any number of politicians who deserve that same description. You know who I am talking about.

Think of all those Democratic members of Congress who piously waited until the final moment to say how they would vote on the health care bill. They said they were meticulously studying the bill, all 2000 plus pages of it, to see how it would best serve their “constituents”.

The further South the member’s district, the heavier the emphasis on the second syllable of that word, “con-stit-uents”

Morris Dees, director of the Southern Law Poverty Center, called me a few years back with a request. We had met earlier during Jimmy Carter’s 1976 presidential campaign. A teenage African American teen age boy had been found guilty of murder. Morris was the lawyer in the case. He was about to go before a Memphis, Tennessee, jury to argue against giving his client the death penalty.

“I need a preacher with a Southern accent who will testify against the death penality to my jury. You have to fly down to Memphis tomorrow.”

I demurred. “Morris”, I said, “I would like to help you, but I have to consider my role as a journalist. I can’t do anything that would compromise my journalist integrity”

Morris, who is from Alabama, was indignant. In his best Southern drawl, he responded, “I don’t give a damn about your journalistic in-teg-ri-ty. I just know I have to stop this jury from killing this young man.”

I agreed to fly down the next day. Turned out, Morris had worked out a plea agreement with the judge, so he didn’t need me. My in-teg-ri-ty survived.

Bibi Netanyahu is an Israeli, but his political instincts are universal. Unfortunately, in his case, what he does and how he does it, has a far greater impact on humankind than does a vote on the health care bill by an American congress member.

His persistent promise to “talk peace” is so empty of reality, so devoid of integrity, that we have to ask, who gave him permission to own Palestine? My friends, the line forms at the left. We are all in it.

The scary thing about Bibi is that he really does seem to have convinced himself that his drive to conquer all of Palestine is going to succeed because he has the American government entirely under his control.

In his column recounting the colorful description of Netanyahu, Christopher Dickey writes that Aluf Benn, diplomatic correspondent for Israel’s Haaretz newspaper, provides insights into what drives Bibi in his dogged determination to squash any future Palestinian state, or relieve any Palestinian suffering.

The Palestinians, who want East Jerusalem as the capital of their state, accuse the Israelis of using [their settlement building] projects to create “facts on the ground” that vastly complicate future negotiations—and, indeed, that is precisely the intent of many Israelis who support the building program.

But the problem as Benn presented it, was more complex than that: a combination of brinkmanship and blackmail in which Netanyahu’s government makes veiled threats to attack Iran, or not, depending on how much pressure it feels on the Palestinian issue.

U.S. military planners have little doubt that an Israeli air campaign against Iranian nuclear facilities would provoke Iranian retaliation against Saudi Arabia and other major oil producers allied with the United States.

American efforts to stabilize Afghanistan and Iraq, both of which border Iran, would come under threat. And there would be no way that any U.S. administration, after so many decades pledging undying support for Israel, could make a convincing claim in Muslim eyes that it was not complicit in the attack.

Netanyahu sounds suspiciously like Saddam Hussein as he continues with his dangerous game-playing. Hussein did not have any hidden WMDs in the months before George Bush launched his “shock and awe’ attack on Iraq seven years ago this past Friday (March 19, 2003).

But Hussein wanted Bush and the rest of the world to think he had the WMDs, the better to frighten them, you see, into leaving him alone, or at the very least, to negotiate with him.

It was a risky bluff that failed, at great cost to Americans and Iraqis alike. It was a bluff that Hussein thought was worth the risk. Right now, Bibi Netanyahu does not want to attack Iran, he just wants Middle America to continue to believe he might.

Middle America is sustained in its paranoia by the ever-faithful Main Stream Media, which reads all Middle Eastern developments through an Israeli perspective. Can you blame the MSM? Check the boards of directors of America’s corporate giants. Count the number of Muslim-sounding names you find there. You may find one or two, but those will be Pakistani Muslims.

Right Wing America is on Israel’s side, no matter what Bibi does, thanks to AIPAC, which holds its annual love fest with funders and its loyal Congressional syncophants, in Washington this week.

Christian Zionists have consistently demonstrated a distinct lack of interest in the human rights of all those Palestinians who remain locked down in their Israeli-enforced prison.

AIPAC is so blatantly serving the interest of a foreign power, that at least one law suit has been filed that would force the US Attorney General to make Israel register as a foreign lobbying agent. The chances of that succeeding are not high, certainly not during the current administration.

The connection between the White House and AIPAC grew even stronger this week after the election of the new AIPAC board president, Lee “Rosy” Rosenberg, a Chicago “jazz recording industry veteran and venture capitalist”. Rosenberg has been described by the Chicago Tribune as close to President Obama, David Alexrod and Rahm Emanuel. In Chicago that is known as knowing a guy who knows a guy.

Nor does Bibi have to worry about the MSM punditocracy, led by its genial dean, Thomas Friedman, the New York Times columnist, who American liberals, Jewish and Gentile alike, want so much to love. After all, ole Tom has written all those entertaining books about the Flat Earth which argue that countries like Israel, China and India make valuable contributions to the world’s economic elite.

This love affair of liberals for Friedman reached something of a personal boiling point for me recently when he wrote his latest screed “against’ Bibi, “Driving Drunk in Jerusalem”.

Phone calls and emails from the liberal crowd sounded a single note: “Tom is making sense” No he’s not.

Friedman’s column drags out his typical half-truth approach to the land he loves dearly, Israel. He always appears to scold Israeli leaders but in this column, and in his earlier advice columns, he sounded like a kid fussing at an elderly uncle who embarassed the family (again) by getting drunk on Thanksgiving.

His sole concern was Bibl’s ill-timed announcement of those 1600 new housing units which were “embarrassing” to Joe Biden while Joe was in Israel to pay his customary homage to the country he also loves dearly.

Here are just a few of the usual Friedman–why don’t you fellows listen to me–canards, as he pretends to admonish Uncle Bibi:

Israel needs a wake-up call. Continuing to build settlements in the West Bank, and even housing in disputed East Jerusalem, is sheer madness. Yasir Arafat accepted that Jewish suburbs there would be under Israeli sovereignty in any peace deal that would also make Arab parts of East Jerusalem the Palestinian capital.

Israel’s planned housing expansion now raises questions about whether Israel will ever be willing to concede a Palestinian capital in Arab neighborhoods of East Jerusalem — a big problem.

Israel has already bitten off plenty of the West Bank. If it wants to remain a Jewish democracy, its only priority now should be striking a deal with the Palestinians that would allow it to swap those settlement blocs in the West Bank occupied by Jews for an equal amount of land from Israel for the Palestinians and then reap the benefits — economic and security — of ending the conflict.

Where should be start in deconstructing that logic. “A wake up call?” Talk to the soldiers you send to the West Bank to mistreat Palestinians trying to go to work, to school, to farm lands, or to hospitals. Those young people have information that will do more than wake Bibi up, Tom.

“Disputed” East Jerusalem? Please. It is in dispute only to Israel’s right wing government. And what is “sheer madness”, Tom, is that, along with the rest of us, you have watched the massive Israeli settlement expansion for decades.The most you can say now is, enough already?

The text in that passage from the Gospel of Thomas is, “Israel has already bitten off plenty of the West Bank”. You bet your bippy it has.

What Tom wants Uncle Bibi to do is sober up and and “strike a deal” to lock in forever those luxurious, prime land, shopping malls, swimming pools, and housing complexes, in suburbs that completly surround Jerualem, by trading them for equal land space in parts of Israel that no one in Israel cares about, otherwise, why aren’t they already settled or farmed?

Friedman does not say the land he wants Bibi to agree to swap was stolen, and continues to be stolen, from Palestinians in violation of and utter disregard for, international law.

So, please, liberal friends, no more praise for Friedman until he is ready to confess that he has been a crucial part of the Israeli strategy to conquer Palestine.

He is not going to confess that, short of a mid life religious conversion to the values of the Hebrew bible. Besides, he does not want to give up his precious professional access to Israel’s power elites who run the state’s “economic and security” agendas, an elite that he visits regularly and for whom he has even been known to deliver formal lectures.

Also, liberal friends, while you are at it, you can stop believing that CNN’s Wolfe Blitzer is a neutral journalist. I suspect you will, once you hear his testimony on Zionism as central to his personal philosophy which he declared during a program in 1989. His fellow panelist was a scholar, Norman Finklestein, who is also Jewish, but who is not nearly as welcome at the Tel Aviv airport as is Blitzer.

I found this clip on the ever reliable Juan Cole’s web site, Informed Consent. It is seven minutes long. If you fail to click on it, below, and pay close attention to both Blitzer and Finklestein, well, I will think less of you. In fact, it is required viewing for all those who wrote or called to tell me that Friedman is now their guy.

The panel was presented as “The Intifada within the American, Israeli, Islamic Triangle University of Pennsylvania.” The event was held November 8, 1989.

The conference was sponsored by The International Student Council, and co-sponsored by: Senior VP for Research and Dean of the Graduate School, Vice Provost and Dean of Undergraduate Education, School of Communications, Middle East Studies Comittee, University Office of International Programs, Department of Political Science, Department of History.

And while we are on the subject of journalistic in-teg-ri-ty, check out this Mondoweiss piece on how the New York Times gave the Israeli ambassador to the US, Michael Oren, space to twist the history of Israel’s conflict with Lebanon. There was no rebuttal, as is customary for the Times whenever it presents a pro-Palestinian piece.

The Times has also been under fire for continuing to employ, as its Middle Eastern correspondent, Ethan Bronner, whose wife is Israeli, and whose son is also Israeli, now serving in Israeli Defense Force.

The Times‘ Ombudsman Clark Hoyt, after receiving many complaints,wrote a column praising Bronner’s professionalism, but he also suggested it was time for the paper to transfer Bronner to another foreign post where his loyalty to Israel might not have such an impact on his reporting.

A newspaper of “record”, as the Times likes to call itself, should place reporters in the Middle East who are knowledgeable, but also sensitive to all sides of the issues about which they are reporting

As the Mondoweiss piece reporting on Ambassador Oren’s twisted treatment of history, illustrates, the Times’ own New York staff needs to approach their editorial responsibilities with the professionalism readers deserve. These readers need to hear a less biased narrative about Israel’s own modern history:

Israel repeatedly manages to alter history in its favor, resulting in common acceptace that Israel won territory in a 1967 “defensive war” and that Arafat ordered the second intifadah in 2000 to win through terror what he could not negotiate at Camp David.

On the other hand, Palestinians are often unable to gain public recognition of actual realities, such as the massacres that precipitated the Nakba and Israel’s shamefully discriminatory treatment of its own non-Jewish citizens.

Between Netanyahu and Obama, The NYT Chooses Bibi’s Fears How Do We Solve The Arab-Israeli Conflict? Hard to solve, easy to explain. More on Israel and the settlements

Caroline CracraftMarch 20, 2010 at 7:04 pm Oren’s NYT piece was shameless, blatant propaganda. You are right, the NYT should have made sure there was an appropriate rebuttal. The FINANCIAL TIMES, it seems to me, is doing an excellent job – but may be preaching to the choir. See two reports in today’s paper and Philip Stephen’s column yesterday (19 March), and previous editorial comment. THE ECONOMIST, too. Thank you for sharing the Blitzer-Finkelstein exchange.Caroline

Richard James WallMarch 20, 2010 at 7:05 pm Another powerful piece from WallWritings.com I always expect nothing less. Rev. Wall brings home the reality that no one really wants to hear but we must. The question for all of us as always is where do we go from here and what do we shout down from the mountain top? Thoughts, suggestions?

Andrea WhitmoreMarch 21, 2010 at 12:39 pm Terrific column today, Jim–as they always are. My cry is “Where is the church?” The governing bodies of mainstream churches have good policies but they seldom filter to the laity or even to pastors–or bishops. How do we make ordinary Christians understand how this should matter to them both morally and practically? And once they know, how do we help them towards activism? This has gone on far too long.

Saturday, March 20, 2010

UPDATES since Rallies for the 7th Year commemorations of the Occupation of Iraq SEE the Iraq Vets, including translator, who spoke OUT against War/Occupation in Fayetteville, NC USA and see the report and photo of singer vet IN FAYETTEVILLE, North Carolina: The afternoon's rousing conclusion was led by Fayetteville guitarist (and 20-year veteran of Ft. Bragg's 82d Airborne Division) Dan Speller and his band, who had the entire park (well, maybe not counting the police) jumping and shouting to the Edwin Starr classic, "War -- What Is It Good For -- Absolutely Nothing!"

SEE lots of other photos and descriptions of the events here - UPDATES with Photos from the 7th Protests:

AND see this just in from NYT with the amazingly honest yet SO LATE quote by Gen. McChrystal! here

US Park Police Insignia courtesy of following post found on internet from:

Remove All U.S. Military from Central Asia

Come back for various approaches and updates...demonstrating that there are oh so many ways to express dismay at these all too many Seven Years of Occupation and expanding...

I promised some updates on the US peace efforts for the 7th year...Don't have much time but here are some good ones to check out and they should lead you to others:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------PEACE OF THE ACTION, WORLD CAN'T WAIT (Debra Sweet), A.N.S.W.E.R., After Downing Street dor org all to have more updates and videos easy to find with simple search.

The understanding is that camping at THIS particular DC U. S. Parks Service - the case ruling is that it's OK to campout there as long as no overnight sleepovers. Is this administration making a choice FOR WAR and against PEACE?

« Cindy Sheehan opens CAMP OUT NOW; Hakeemulla Mehsud is alive; and the War goes on U.S. Parks Service forces Cindy Sheehan to take down CAMP OUT NOW Tents on National Mall; March 20 March on Washington TODAY, March in San Francisco and Los Angeles, Police arrest Poster Hangers, charge them with a Felony

The U.S Parks Service Forces CAMP OUT NOW to take down their temporary Tent. In other words, President Barack Obama’s Administration allows the U.S. Parks Service to demand Cindy Sheehan take down the Tents. Read CAMP OUT NOW’s press release:

On Monday, March 15th, Camp OUT NOW, a Peace Camp erected by US Citizens on the lawn of the Washington Monument, was denied by the National Park Service its legal rights (based on National Park Service regulation 7.96) to erect temporary tents.

According to case law, tents are able to be erected as long as there is no sleeping—the Park Service forced the campers to take down the tents Monday afternoon immediately after they were set-up. “On the 7th anniversary of an illegal war that has killed over a million people and in the shadow of the government that commits crimes on a daily basis, we will claim our legal rights to establishment an anti-war camp, and we expect to do so unmolested by law enforcement,” said Cindy Sheehan, National Director of Peace of the Action.

Peace of the Action is inviting all concerned citizens to join us at Camp this evening to help us fight the arbitrary enforcement of national law. The action will take place Saturday night, March 20th beginning at 8pm. FOLLOW CAMP OUT NOW at Cindy Sheehan’s blog, click here.

CINDY SHEEHAN IS THE MOTHER OF SPC. CASEY SHEEHAN WHO WAS KILLED IN IRAQ ON 04 APRIL 2004. SHE IS THE NATIONAL DIRECTOR OF PEACE OF THE ACTION AND THE AUTHOR OF FIVE BOOKS AND HOST OF HER OWN RADIO SHOW: CINDY SHEEHAN’S SOAPBOX. * * * In Washington DC, putting up a poster telling people about the March 20 March on Washington will get you fined, in California, you get arrested and charged with a Felony, then fined.

The government has fined A.N.S.W.E.R., the organizers of the March 20 March on Washington $80,000 FOR PUTTING UP POSTERS.

In San Francisco and Los Angeles, people putting up posters to tell people about the March 20 March on Washington have been ARRESTED, and charged with a Felony, and fined $20,000 each. IS GEORGE W. BUSH STILL PRESIDENT?

Friday, March 19, 2010

"...a breach of international laws on neutrality and a gross affront to Ireland 's proud tradition in this regard. ...a new low in Ireland 's sell-out to the U.S. war industry....over 5,000 U.S. troops a week pass through Shannon on their way to or from Iraq and Afghanistan . Figures released by Shannonwatch in February indicate that more than 25 U.S. military flights a week use the airport. This has turned it into a de-facto U.S. military base, without the permission of the Irish people.

The U.S. use of Shannon Airport by CIA rendition crews has also been well documented over the last decade. These are in breach of international and national laws, including the Criminal Justice Act (UN Convention Against Torture) Act 2000. These were not mentioned during the Obama – Cowan meeting as far as we are aware, but Shannonwatch are concerned that these too may be allowed to continue." Excerpt from Press Release below

(Or be moved some other secret place - Connie, blogger here)

Shannonwatch

While most of the world was turning green for St Patrick's Day, Ireland was committing itself to an ongoing role in the unjustified war being waged in Afghanistan . President Barrack Obama thanked the Irish Government for allowing US troops to stop off at Shannon Airport on their way to and from Iraq and Afghanistan . Secretary of State Hillary Clinton even landed at the airport herself to further embed our support for the US war machine into the nation's psyche. Together these amount to a breach of international laws on neutrality and a gross affront to Ireland 's proud tradition in this regard. They also signify a new low in Ireland 's sell-out to the U.S. war industry.

According to official figures, over 5,000 U.S. troops a week pass through Shannon on their way to or from Iraq and Afghanistan . Figures released by Shannonwatch in February indicate that more than 25 U.S. military flights a week use the airport. This has turned it into a de-facto U.S. military base, without the permission of the Irish people.

The U.S. use of Shannon Airport by CIA rendition crews has also been well documented over the last decade. These are in breach of international and national laws, including the Criminal Justice Act (UN Convention Against Torture) Act 2000. These were not mentioned during the Obama – Cowan meeting as far as we are aware, but Shannonwatch are concerned that these too may be allowed to continue.

A spokesperson for Shannonwatch said “It has been clear for many years that Shannon Airport is an important part of U.S. efforts to use its military might abroad. This is not something that most Irish people are aware of, but things now seem to be moving on to a new level of military cooperation. The present Irish government has completely abandoned Ireland ’s traditional position of neutrality by openly and enthusiastically supporting the U.S. occupation of Afghanistan .”

“As well as being contrary to Ireland 's proud tradition of neutrality and peacekeeping, the use of Shannon Airport by the U.S. military has resulted in weak security, ongoing human rights abuse and corrupt government in Afghanistan . It has also resulted in countless deaths in Iraq .”

Shannonwatch calls on the Irish government to explain the basis upon which Shannon Airport was made available to a foreign government for their military use. They also call on the government to reverse its decision to allow the airport to be used in two wars of occupation (in Iraq and Afghanistan ). These wars are not serving the interests of the people living in these countries, and the vital logistical support provided at Shannon is morally as well as financially indefensible.

For further information contact Shannonwatch on 087 8225087 or email shannonwatch@gmail.com. See also shannonwatch dot org

For more info on Rendition/Extraordinary Renditions and upcoming Forum "Weaving a Net of Accountability" at Duke University North Carolina April 8-10, please go to ncstoptorturenow dot org LINK HERE SEE short and striking VIDEO on this coming forum by going to the forum website: "Weaving a Net of Accountability: Taking on extraordinary rendition at the state and regional level" Thur Apr 8, 5:30PM-9:00PM Fri Apr 9, 9:00AM-5:00PM HERE See Home - or find the six-minute “Weaving a Net of Accountability” video HERE

(See link to video with Scott Horton and more related items related to Rendition and Suspicians of Ongoing Torture Under Obama administration below the article)

The only significant edit by the News & Observer article below was the removal of this sentence about Binyam Mohamed’s treatment in Morocco :

This is a time of year when many Americans celebrate their Irish roots.

But the U.S. government doesn't want North Carolinians getting too close to at least one Irishman.

In the past, this would have been someone like Gerry Adams, the politician with ties to the Irish Republican Army. But Edward Horgan is no rebel; he was an officer in the Irish Defence Forces for 22 years. He served as a United Nations peacekeeper in Cyprus and the Sinai. Currently, he monitors elections in places like Ghana, Armenia , Zimbabwe , East Timor and Ukraine .

Last year, Horgan visited the United States to see family and attend the presidential inauguration. But this year, while observing elections in frigid Kiev, he learned that his 10-year, multiple-entry U.S. visa had been revoked.

The reason? No official will say, though Horgan is scheduled to attend an April conference at Duke University to speak about his opposition to extraordinary rendition.

Horgan co-founded Shannon Watch, a grass-roots group that protests the use of Ireland 's main international airport as a stop for U.S. planes transporting terror suspects to secret sites. Human rights groups report that dozens of detainees have been tortured. Others have "disappeared," vanished without a trace.

In 2002, Binyam Mohamed was a legal resident of the U.K. when he was detained and tortured by U.S., British and Pakistani authorities in Pakistan. He was then "rendered" to Morocco, where he endured 18 months of truly medieval abuse - at the hands of the Moroccans, but at the behest of the Central Intelligence Agency. He was allegedly beaten severely and threatened with electrocution, rape and execution.

In 2004, Mohamed was rendered again, this time to Afghanistan. In the infamous "Dark Prison," he was held in almost complete darkness for 23 hours a day, and kept awake for days at a time with loud music and spooky recordings. He was then flown to Guantanamo. After four years, he was released without any charge - or a single day in court.

North Carolinians need to know that the pilots and crews that twice transported Mohamed are based in North Carolina. Many credible reports indicate that Smithfield-based Aero Contractors - working for the CIA - picks up detainees and flies them to sites where torture is commonplace. After making the Atlantic crossing, planes often refuel at Shannon, where Irish citizens like Horgan voice their non-violent protest of a serious human rights abuse.

Horgan has exercised his right to protest at Shannon for nearly a decade. What changed since he visited the U.S. as a tourist last year? Visa holders have undergone intense scrutiny since the attempted Christmas bombing. But this is quite another case. Does Washington want to shield us from prominent critics of extraordinary rendition?

That would be a daunting task, since the number of critics is growing. A 2007 Council of Europe report said the CIA operated secret prisons in Europe where terrorism suspects were interrogated and tortured. That same year, a German judge issued warrants for CIA agents and contractors, including three North Carolina-based pilots. Last year, an Italian judge convicted a CIA chief and 22 other Americans, almost all CIA operatives, of kidnapping a Muslim cleric from Milan in 2003.

Two days after his inauguration, President Barack Obama took the overdue step of banning torture by U.S. officials, moving us away from the "dark side" advocated by our former vice president, Dick Cheney. Since then, however, Obama's record has been mixed.

Extraordinary rendition continues, with North Carolina as a likely hub. The Department of Justice continues to block torture survivors' civil lawsuits, arguing that a hearing would jeopardize state secrets - despite the fact that these are well-known international scandals.

At a minimum, we need to stop kidnapping people, holding them in secret prisons and torturing them. We won't move past this shameful legacy by muzzling critics or denying torture survivors a day in court. As Horgan says, he and many people around the world still look up to the United States as a symbol of freedom and the rule of law.

What many do not know about St. Patrick is that he was born in Britain and originally came to Ireland a slave. He escaped, but later had a vision that the Irish needed him, so returned. He fought to free other slaves before dying a revered old man near modern-day Belfast.

We have nothing to fear from critics like Horgan. To the contrary, such voices should be welcomed, since they may help us find our way back from the dark side.

Christina Cowger works with North Carolina Stop Torture Now. Robin Kirk directs the Duke Human Rights Center. Information about the April 8-10 conference is at accountabilityfortorturenc dot org

By Edward J. Horgan (the following found on the above linked Curriculum Vitae)

My efforts to promote peace by peaceful means include:• Organise peaceful demonstrations against the abuse of Irish neutrality arising from US military use at Shannon airport for unlawful wars in Afghanistan and Iraq from 2001 to date.• Initiating a peace camp at Shannon airport in January 2001 to create public awareness of Ireland’s breach of the Hague Convention on Neutrality.• Took High Court Constitutional case against Irish Government over the Shannon issuein March 2003• Returned all my military and UN decorations and Presidential CommissioningCertificate in Sept 2003, in protest at the Irish Government’s participation in the Iraq.• Unjustly and unlawfully arrested or detained during protests or while simply transiting through Shannon airport on four occasions, since 2002.

My efforts to promote peace and justice, by peaceful means and the rule of law will continue.

REPORT from Sunday's vigil (yesterday) on Irish Mother's Day HEREOn Sunday March 14th, a group of peaceful demonstrators gathered at Shannon to mark the seventh anniversary of the US-led invasion of Iraq, and to relaunch the Black Shamrock simultaneously with DAWC/FEIC in Derry.

==================VIDEO HERE SCOTT HORTON on Renditions under Obama (continuing Renditions policy Under Bush) From August 14, 2009 (which would lead many casual observers to ask: what else did Raymond Azar know?)

Renditions Buffoonery—By Scott Horton (Harper's Magazine) In a breathless piece of reporting in the Sunday Los Angeles Times, we are told that Barack Obama “left intact”...HERE

Renditions, Obama Style—By Scott Horton (Harper's Magazine) By Scott Horton. Raymond Azar is a 45-year-old Lebanese construction manager who traveled to Kabul in April to meet with one of his HERE

Obama and the Torture Hangover (What's happening since Obama to the Geneva Conventions and International Law HERE

****************************

From Binyam Mohamed upon his release from Gitmo last year: "Worse than my darkest nightmare. As I gain my freedom, I am determined that neither those who remain in detention, nor their abusers, are forgotten."

Federal auditors on Monday put a stop to Army plans to award a $1 billion training program for Afghan police officers to the company formerly known as Blackwater, concluding that other companies were unfairly excluded from bidding on the job.

The decision by the Government Accountability Office leaves unclear who will oversee training of the struggling Afghan National Police, a poorly equipped, 90,000-strong paramilitary force that will inherit the task of preserving order in the country after NATO troops depart.

GAO officials upheld a protest by DynCorp International Inc., which currently conducts training for Afghan police under a State Department contract. DynCorp lawyers argued that the company should have been allowed to submit bids when management of the training program passed from State to the Army. Instead, Pentagon officials allowed the training program to be attached to an existing Defense contract that supports counternarcotics efforts in Afghanistan.

Xe Services, the new name of Blackwater, was poised to win one portion of a much larger group of contracts, shared among five corporations, that could earn the companies more than $15 billion over five years.

GAO officials said the decision will allow a new round of bidding by DynCorp and other firms, including Xe Services.

"We recognize the Army's position that it needs to swiftly award a contract for these services," said Ralph O. White, an attorney with the GAO's procurement oversight division. But he said the Army must conduct a "full and open competition," or explain in writing why DynCorp had been excluded.

The Pentagon's decision to allow Xe to run the training program drew a strong protest last week from Carl M. Levin (D-Mich.), chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee. Levin cited a history of allegedly abusive behavior by the contractor's employees, including misappropriation of government weapons and hiring of workers with criminal records that included assault and drug offenses. He also accused managers of the private security company of lying to win lucrative jobs in Afghanistan.

Levin, responding to Monday's GAO decision, said government contracting practices had too often been unfairly exclusive, though he acknowledged that Xe may ultimately end up as the winner in competitive bidding.

"If this contract is re-bid and Blackwater is among the bidders, I hope that the Defense Department will take a close look at the company to determine if it is a suitable contracting partner for the U.S. government," he said.

A spokesman for Xe declined to comment.

DynCorp President Bill Ballhaus welcomed the decision.

"We are performing this crucial training mission now, and will continue to meet all objectives of the commanders on the ground while a full and transparent bidding process can ensure the best outcome for the taxpayer, our mission and the Afghan people," he said.

==============================Blackwater Requests a CorrectionBy Spencer Ackerman 3/16/10 4:14 PM http://washingtonindependent.com/79409/blackwater-requests-a-correctionThe private security company, renamed Xe Services, objects to my use of the verb “stole” to refer to the guns it got from the U.S. military in Afghanistan in 2008. A letter from its general counsel reads, in part:

Xe Services LLC disagrees with several statements and opinions in the on-line article by Spencer Ackerman yesterday (”DynCorp Wins Its Bid to Stop Blackwater’s Next Afghanistan contract — For Now”), but the statement that the company “stole guns intended for the Afghan police from a U.S. military depot near Kabul” is factually wrong and warrants correction. No guns were stolen. As documents released by the Senate Armed Services Committee (”SASC”) demonstrate, the company obtained weapons from “Bunker 22,” which is an Afghan National Police weapons and ammunition storage facility (including weapons coalition forces seized from insurgents or discovered in caches often dating back to the Soviet occupation) whose operation is managed by U.S. military personnel. The company obtained these weapons with the knowledge and assistance of U.S. military personnel managing the facility. Therefore, these weapons could not have been stolen.

What Blackwater’s attorney neglects to point out is that the company’s employees obtained weapons from Bunker 22 from the U.S. military under false pretenses. Gen. David Petraeus affirmed to the committee that Blackwater was never authorized to carry guns kept at Bunker 22 (”there is no current or past written policy, order, directive, or instruction that allows U.S. Military contractors or subcontractors in Afghanistan to use weapons stored at 22 Bunkers”), commensurate with the broader fact that Blackwater employees in Afghanistan under Army subcontract were never allowed to carry weapons for their personal use. On at least one occasion, a person identifying himself as a Blackwater employee signed for hundreds of guns using the name “Eric Cartman,” apparently after the sassy “South Park” character who, appropriately, does what he wants without regard for authoritah. What’s more, according to committee chairman Carl Levin (D-Mich.) at the February hearing, Blackwater is still in possession of 53 guns from the U.S. military command in Afghanistan that it was never authorized to possess in the first place.

If Blackwater would prefer I write that it “took weapons from the U.S. military in Afghanistan under false pretenses” to writing that it “stole” those weapons, I am happy to oblige the company.

============================Xe gets 5-year permit renewalBy Toby TateStaff writerTuesday, March 16, 2010http://www.dailyadvance.com/news/xe-gets-5-year-permit-renewal-17762CURRITUCK — The private security firm formerly known as Blackwater has received approval to operate its firing ranges and other training facilities in Currituck County for another five years.

Currituck commissioners unanimously agreed Monday to renew Xe’s special use permit until 2015 — three years more than the company had asked for and four years longer than its current arrangement with the county.

Planning Director Ben Woody said that when commissioners agreed to the special use permit with Blackwater — Xe’s former name — last year, they placed a one-year time limit on it.

Xe needed the permit, Woody said, because it mistakenly constructed its training facility, at the south end of Puddin Ridge Road, in both Camden and Currituck counties. A surveying error had led to the mistake, he said.

“Blackwater was under the impression that their driving track and their firing ranges were located in Camden County and we found out they weren’t, so we asked Blackwater to come in and get (a special use permit), which they were more than willing to do,” Woody said.

Woody said Xe had returned this year asking for a two-year permit. He said his office didn’t have any complaint with the request because the company had complied with all of the terms of its original permit.

“From staff perspective, we did not receive any complaints regarding the operations of their facilities in Currituck County,” he said.

Commissioner John Rorer asked Woody whether time limits are normally placed on special use permits.

“It depends on the type of use,” Woody said. “Generally for more sensitive uses or uses that may have compliance issues, the board has established time limits to force the applicant to come back in and make sure they follow the terms.”

Woody said that even without a time limit, however, commissioners can revoke a permit if conditions have been violated.

Kate McKenzie, associate general counsel for Xe Services, said the company was not asking for any changes to the conditions of its permit. All it was asking, she said, was that the permit be extended for greater than one year.

“We would just like, for administrative purposes for us and your staff, to have a two-year renewal so we don’t have to come back again next year,” she said.

Tuesday, March 16, 2010

HERE are some simple actions...they won't take much of your time...you can do these internationally...

(For those who are looking for more on Rachel Corrie and Israel/Palestine OR RENDITION scroll JUST below)

Seven years ago today, 23 year-old Rachel Corrie of Olympia, Washington was crushed to death by a Caterpillar D-9R bulldozer driven by an Israeli soldier. Rachel was part of an International Solidarity Movement group trying to prevent the demolition of a Palestinian pharmacist's home in Rafah, Gaza.

Seven years later, Rachel's memory is still vibrant and her family is still fighting for answers. Rachel's parents and sister are currently in Israel participating in a civil case against the state of Israel for intentional and unlawful killing and gross negligence in Rachel's death. In addition to seeking accountability for Rachel's death through the Israeli court system, the Corrie family has requested that we support Rachel's vision of freedom for Palestinians living in the Gaza Strip by participating in a NATIONAL CALL-IN DAY to the White House. (OF COURSE FROM ANYWHERE AND ANYTIME IS GREAT BUT SOONER THE BETTER)

Please honor the request of this bereaved family and do the following:

§ Call the White House at 202-456-1111 AND/OR fill out this QUICK petition: here

§ Urge Special Envoy for Middle East Peace George Mitchell to visit Gaza and demand that the United States break the blockade of Gaza by providing immediate humanitarian aid and building materials.

Congressman Brian Baird, whose constituents include Rachel's parents Cindy and Craig, has already sent a letter to President Obama requesting that the United States break the siege of Gaza. READ his letter for talking points and awarenesshere Brian Baird on Gaza (Feb 19 2010)

In addition to participating in our national call-in day, you may be able to attend a Rachel Corrie memorial event in your area. Click here to find out what's happening in your neighborhood:

Another way to show your support for the Corrie family as they move forward with their civil case in Israel is to sign up for updates from the trial. GO here

The Corries and their supporters will be posting reports from the courtroom, media mentions of the case, and other updates on the Rachel Corrie Foundation website. Click to view the trial updates page on the Rachel Corrie Foundation website. Monitor coverage of the trial in your local media and post favorable comments about trial coverage for on-line media stories and write a letter-to-the-editor if your newspaper includes trial coverage. For tips on how to write a letter-to-the-editor and various other information click here

From the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation endtheoccupation dot org or CLICK here

For various YOU Tube videos on Rachel Corrie GO to YOU TUBE and put RAchel Corrie Catepillar in Search or Try here

Monday, March 15, 2010

For more info on Rendition/Extraordinary Renditions and upcoming Forum "Weaving a Net of Accountability" at Duke University North Carolina April 8-10, please go to ncstoptorturenow dot org LINK HERE SEE short and striking VIDEO on this coming forum by going to the forum website: "Weaving a Net of Accountability: Taking on extraordinary rendition at the state and regional level" Thur Apr 8, 5:30PM-9:00PM Fri Apr 9, 9:00AM-5:00PM HERE See Home - or find the six-minute “Weaving a Net of Accountability” video HERE

(See link to video with Scott Horton and more related items related to Rendition and Suspicians of Ongoing Torture Under Obama administration below the article)

The only significant edit by the News & Observer article below was the removal of this sentence about Binyam Mohamed’s treatment in Morocco :

This is a time of year when many Americans celebrate their Irish roots.

But the U.S. government doesn't want North Carolinians getting too close to at least one Irishman.

In the past, this would have been someone like Gerry Adams, the politician with ties to the Irish Republican Army. But Edward Horgan is no rebel; he was an officer in the Irish Defence Forces for 22 years. He served as a United Nations peacekeeper in Cyprus and the Sinai. Currently, he monitors elections in places like Ghana, Armenia , Zimbabwe , East Timor and Ukraine .

Last year, Horgan visited the United States to see family and attend the presidential inauguration. But this year, while observing elections in frigid Kiev, he learned that his 10-year, multiple-entry U.S. visa had been revoked.

The reason? No official will say, though Horgan is scheduled to attend an April conference at Duke University to speak about his opposition to extraordinary rendition.

Horgan co-founded Shannon Watch, a grass-roots group that protests the use of Ireland 's main international airport as a stop for U.S. planes transporting terror suspects to secret sites. Human rights groups report that dozens of detainees have been tortured. Others have "disappeared," vanished without a trace.

In 2002, Binyam Mohamed was a legal resident of the U.K. when he was detained and tortured by U.S., British and Pakistani authorities in Pakistan. He was then "rendered" to Morocco, where he endured 18 months of truly medieval abuse - at the hands of the Moroccans, but at the behest of the Central Intelligence Agency. He was allegedly beaten severely and threatened with electrocution, rape and execution.

In 2004, Mohamed was rendered again, this time to Afghanistan. In the infamous "Dark Prison," he was held in almost complete darkness for 23 hours a day, and kept awake for days at a time with loud music and spooky recordings. He was then flown to Guantanamo. After four years, he was released without any charge - or a single day in court.

North Carolinians need to know that the pilots and crews that twice transported Mohamed are based in North Carolina. Many credible reports indicate that Smithfield-based Aero Contractors - working for the CIA - picks up detainees and flies them to sites where torture is commonplace. After making the Atlantic crossing, planes often refuel at Shannon, where Irish citizens like Horgan voice their non-violent protest of a serious human rights abuse.

Horgan has exercised his right to protest at Shannon for nearly a decade. What changed since he visited the U.S. as a tourist last year? Visa holders have undergone intense scrutiny since the attempted Christmas bombing. But this is quite another case. Does Washington want to shield us from prominent critics of extraordinary rendition?

That would be a daunting task, since the number of critics is growing. A 2007 Council of Europe report said the CIA operated secret prisons in Europe where terrorism suspects were interrogated and tortured. That same year, a German judge issued warrants for CIA agents and contractors, including three North Carolina-based pilots. Last year, an Italian judge convicted a CIA chief and 22 other Americans, almost all CIA operatives, of kidnapping a Muslim cleric from Milan in 2003.

Two days after his inauguration, President Barack Obama took the overdue step of banning torture by U.S. officials, moving us away from the "dark side" advocated by our former vice president, Dick Cheney. Since then, however, Obama's record has been mixed.

Extraordinary rendition continues, with North Carolina as a likely hub. The Department of Justice continues to block torture survivors' civil lawsuits, arguing that a hearing would jeopardize state secrets - despite the fact that these are well-known international scandals.

At a minimum, we need to stop kidnapping people, holding them in secret prisons and torturing them. We won't move past this shameful legacy by muzzling critics or denying torture survivors a day in court. As Horgan says, he and many people around the world still look up to the United States as a symbol of freedom and the rule of law.

What many do not know about St. Patrick is that he was born in Britain and originally came to Ireland a slave. He escaped, but later had a vision that the Irish needed him, so returned. He fought to free other slaves before dying a revered old man near modern-day Belfast.

We have nothing to fear from critics like Horgan. To the contrary, such voices should be welcomed, since they may help us find our way back from the dark side.

Christina Cowger works with North Carolina Stop Torture Now. Robin Kirk directs the Duke Human Rights Center. Information about the April 8-10 conference is at accountabilityfortorturenc dot org

By Edward J. Horgan (the following found on the above linked Curriculum Vitae)

My efforts to promote peace by peaceful means include:• Organise peaceful demonstrations against the abuse of Irish neutrality arising from US military use at Shannon airport for unlawful wars in Afghanistan and Iraq from 2001 to date.• Initiating a peace camp at Shannon airport in January 2001 to create public awareness of Ireland’s breach of the Hague Convention on Neutrality.• Took High Court Constitutional case against Irish Government over the Shannon issuein March 2003• Returned all my military and UN decorations and Presidential CommissioningCertificate in Sept 2003, in protest at the Irish Government’s participation in the Iraq.• Unjustly and unlawfully arrested or detained during protests or while simply transiting through Shannon airport on four occasions, since 2002.

My efforts to promote peace and justice, by peaceful means and the rule of law will continue.

REPORT from Sunday's vigil (yesterday) on Irish Mother's Day HEREOn Sunday March 14th, a group of peaceful demonstrators gathered at Shannon to mark the seventh anniversary of the US-led invasion of Iraq, and to relaunch the Black Shamrock simultaneously with DAWC/FEIC in Derry.

==================VIDEO HERE SCOTT HORTON on Renditions under Obama (continuing Renditions policy Under Bush) From August 14, 2009 (which would lead many casual observers to ask: what else did Raymond Azar know?)

Renditions Buffoonery—By Scott Horton (Harper's Magazine) In a breathless piece of reporting in the Sunday Los Angeles Times, we are told that Barack Obama “left intact”...HERE

Renditions, Obama Style—By Scott Horton (Harper's Magazine) By Scott Horton. Raymond Azar is a 45-year-old Lebanese construction manager who traveled to Kabul in April to meet with one of his HERE

Obama and the Torture Hangover (What's happening since Obama to the Geneva Conventions and International Law HERE

****************************

From Binyam Mohamed upon his release from Gitmo last year: "Worse than my darkest nightmare. As I gain my freedom, I am determined that neither those who remain in detention, nor their abusers, are forgotten."

Sunday March 21, 2010… 12:30 a DEDICATION OF THE BANNER “HONOR THE IMAGE OF GOD, STOP TORTURE NOW” Let us say as a community “No to Torture”!!

Where: the CHURCH OF RECONCILIATION (PCUSA) Presbyterian Church, USA.

110 N. ELLIOTT Rd, CHAPEL HILL NC USA

Who: Worshippers from the Church of Reconciliation and others will gather in the Parking lot below where this banner is hung and reflect again on the tragic experiences of torture

Rev. Mark Davidson, Church Pastor, Rev Robert Seymour , Pastor emeritus at Binkley Baptist Church and Steve Edelstein,Esq, Attorney and member of NC Stop torture Now, will offer comment s at this Dedication

****************************

SCORECARD ON TORTURE:THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION’S FIRST YEAR

North Carolina Stop Torture Now regrets to report our disappointment with the first year of the Obama Administration. On human rights, thus far, the Administration has offered a blend of promising rhetoric and frightening actions. This administration continues to actively prevent accountability for past crimes by concealing evidence of the abuses of “disappearance” and torture under the Bush Administration. Indeed, the current Administration has hardened the stance that detainees in the so-called “war on terror” lack constitutional and human rights.

These actions further alienate the U.S. from the Muslim world, and ensure an inexhaustible supply of those willing to lay down their lives to attack us.

Holding torturers accountable is a key element of securing U.S. citizens' safety, reclaiming our national integrity, and rejoining the global community with a commitment to protect, enhance, and expand human rights.

By Ken Dilanian, USA TODAY WASHINGTON — Israel's announcement last week, during a visit by Vice President Biden, that it would build new homes for Jews in ...USA Today leading to a deep chasm. Biden gets Snubbed in Israel: Analysts see ongoing tension with Israel over settlement ‎ - March 16, 2010 EST USA Today dot com here

See this well-done and SHOCKING video on Catepillar Bull-dozers - modified to be especially destructive and to UPROOT olive trees, DESTROY Palestinian homes, BUILD the SETTLEMENT houses for Jewish/Israelis (contributing to the current fiasco between Biden and Israel) and to Kill people who "get in their way"...such as Rachel Corrie here

This is a time of year when many Americans celebrate their Irish roots.

But the U.S. government doesn't want North Carolinians getting too close to at least one Irishman.

In the past, this would have been someone like Gerry Adams, the politician with ties to the Irish Republican Army. But Edward Horgan is no rebel; he was an officer in the Irish Defence Forces for 22 years. He served as a United Nations peacekeeper in Cyprus and the Sinai. Currently, he monitors elections in places like Ghana , Armenia , Zimbabwe , East Timor and Ukraine .

Last year, Horgan visited the United States to see family and attend the presidential inauguration. But this year, while observing elections in frigid Kiev , he learned that his 10-year, multiple-entry U.S. visa had been revoked.

The reason? No official will say, though Horgan is scheduled to attend an April conference at Duke University to speak about his opposition to extraordinary rendition.

Horgan co-founded Shannon Watch, a grass-roots group that protests the use of Ireland 's main international airport as a stop for U.S. planes transporting terror suspects to secret sites. Human rights groups report that dozens of detainees have been tortured. Others have "disappeared," vanished without a trace.

In 2002, Binyam Mohamed was a legal resident of the U.K. when he was detained and tortured by U.S. , British and Pakistani authorities in Pakistan . He was then "rendered" to Morocco , where he endured 18 months of truly medieval abuse - at the hands of the Moroccans, but at the behest of the Central Intelligence Agency. He was allegedly beaten severely and threatened with electrocution, rape and execution.

In 2004, Mohamed was rendered again, this time to Afghanistan . In the infamous "Dark Prison," he was held in almost complete darkness for 23 hours a day, and kept awake for days at a time with loud music and spooky recordings. He was then flown to Guantanamo . After four years, he was released without any charge - or a single day in court.

North Carolinians need to know that the pilots and crews that twice transported Mohamed are based in North Carolina . Many credible reports indicate that Smithfield-based Aero Contractors - working for the CIA - picks up detainees and flies them to sites where torture is commonplace. After making the Atlantic crossing, planes often refuel at Shannon , where Irish citizens like Horgan voice their non-violent protest of a serious human rights abuse.

Horgan has exercised his right to protest at Shannon for nearly a decade. What changed since he visited the U.S. as a tourist last year? Visa holders have undergone intense scrutiny since the attempted Christmas bombing. But this is quite another case. Does Washington want to shield us from prominent critics of extraordinary rendition?

That would be a daunting task, since the number of critics is growing. A 2007 Council of Europe report said the CIA operated secret prisons in Europe where terrorism suspects were interrogated and tortured. That same year, a German judge issued warrants for CIA agents and contractors, including three North Carolina-based pilots. Last year, an Italian judge convicted a CIA chief and 22 other Americans, almost all CIA operatives, of kidnapping a Muslim cleric from Milan in 2003.

Two days after his inauguration, President Barack Obama took the overdue step of banning torture by U.S. officials, moving us away from the "dark side" advocated by our former vice president, Dick Cheney. Since then, however, Obama's record has been mixed.

Extraordinary rendition continues, with North Carolina as a likely hub. The Department of Justice continues to block torture survivors' civil lawsuits, arguing that a hearing would jeopardize state secrets - despite the fact that these are well-known international scandals.

At a minimum, we need to stop kidnapping people, holding them in secret prisons and torturing them. We won't move past this shameful legacy by muzzling critics or denying torture survivors a day in court. As Horgan says, he and many people around the world still look up to the United States as a symbol of freedom and the rule of law.

What many do not know about St. Patrick is that he was born in Britain and originally came to Ireland a slave. He escaped, but later had a vision that the Irish needed him, so returned. He fought to free other slaves before dying a revered old man near modern-day Belfast .

We have nothing to fear from critics like Horgan. To the contrary, such voices should be welcomed, since they may help us find our way back from the dark side.

Christina Cowger works with North Carolina Stop Torture Now. Robin Kirk directs the Duke Human Rights Center. Information about the April 8-10 conference is at accountabilityfortorturenc dot org